Latest / Voices for Voices® / When You're Waiting for Bad News | How to Show Up for Yourself | Episode 486

Transcript

When You're Waiting for Bad News | How to Show Up for Yourself | Episode 486 · Voices for Voices®

• 0:01
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Hi everyone, it's Justin here, Voices for Voices.
• 0:05
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Thank you so much for joining us, whether you're watching, listening here in the United States or across the world.
• 0:12
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Because of you, we have this great platform to share, to talk about mental health, trauma, recovery, um, and all topics in between.
• 0:24
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• 0:32
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• 0:34
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• 0:37
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• 0:38
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• 0:41
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And uh just being a part of the Voices for Voices family.
• 0:46
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: We want to say thank you for that.
• 0:50
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh, whether this is your first show or you've been with us from the beginning, uh, we're over 480 episodes.
• 0:57
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: It's it's awesome.
• 0:59
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So thank you for that.
• 1:01
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And if you've been able to, you could uh reach out to maybe 25 contacts in your phone and let them know about the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast, give them all the pertinent information, the links, and let them choose how they want to uh watch and or listen to the show.
• 1:23
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Thank you so much.
• 1:24
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Day of the week.
• 1:27
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Day of the week.
• 1:30
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Are there certain days that are different than others?
• 1:37
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So we'll cover a few different ways.
• 1:41
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: For me, I I would have to say yes.
• 1:49
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Um say like the old the old me.
• 1:55
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh Sundays would be the uh one of the days that I would feel different on mentally, and that is because on Monday, the next day, gotta head back into work.
• 2:23
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And depending, this may or may not be you.
• 2:27
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: I'm just sharing my experience.
• 2:33
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: If we like our jobs, do we like what we do, we may not feel that way.
• 2:41
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: If we like what we do and we're treated different differently, meaning that we're not being respected by members of the company we work for, uh, that we feel hear the term uh being burnt out, you know, mentally, where our mind needs a nap, right?
• 3:21
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Our body needs rest and relaxation, so does our mind.
• 3:27
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And if we have those thoughts of, oh my gosh, tomorrow, oh, I just know when I get in that my manager is gonna just land three or four extra things on my desk that I'm gonna need to do right away before I even get started with my regular regular work, which, oh, by the way, when that happens, doesn't mean you can usually push the regular work, like the regular routine, doesn't mean that you can push that that off.
• 4:14
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So the deadlines for that regular work still stay the same.
• 4:19
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: That that's the part where it's like, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do?
• 4:26
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: How am I gonna handle this?
• 4:28
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: How am I gonna get through this day?
• 4:31
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And and then our mind begins to drift some, maybe.
• 4:38
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So for for the old me, that's how it was.
• 4:42
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So Sundays were the days of it being it being a rough day, because again, for me at that time, everything I would do during the during the day of Sunday, it would be with a little bit of hesitation because my mind was like, oh man, oh tomorrow's Monday, and again, if you love what you do, all the power to you.
• 5:27
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Now I love what I do, and so it doesn't feel that much like that all the days of the week for the most part.
• 5:42
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Some are busier than others, but when you love what you do, like I love helping people, I love sharing my experience and others on the show and other other ways.
• 5:59
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: When you love what you do, like what you do, things things are different, and they are so a Sunday for me is like, okay, well, we have the same kind of work to do on Monday that we did on Sunday and Saturday and Friday and Thursday.
• 6:26
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: You get the drift.
• 6:30
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: How about having a doctor's appointment or a dental dentist appointment and having last week had a dental appointment to correct or fix a chipped filling that is a cavity that I have, I didn't want to do it.
• 7:11
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: I mean, what let's let's be straight up, and so that was I forget what day of the week it was.
• 7:21
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Um, I mean, I could look up real quick and find it, but it doesn't matter.
• 7:27
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So whatever day of the week the the dental appointment is, you know, the day before could feel like, oh, I don't want to go to the dentist tomorrow, oh, I don't want to go to the doctor tomorrow.
• 7:47
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Um that's that's definitely how I was feeling.
• 7:56
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And then it gets to be that day, the day of the appointment, and then it just depends on what time of day the appointment is.
• 8:07
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Is the appointment in the morning, afternoon, early evening?
• 8:16
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: How long is the appointment supposed to take?
• 8:20
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: What are we going to review?
• 8:24
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Or what's going to happen to my teeth?
• 8:26
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And uh, you know, so I had obviously a numb side of my mouth for a good part of the day, and so that was a different thing, not something that I haven't experienced before.
• 8:48
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Um, but anytime you're doing uh medical procedures and dental procedures like a crown or fixing a uh a chip filling or getting a brand new filling on a different tooth, and and so that can affect us right different differently mentally because our mind, I mean, I I always like to look at everything like a circle, right?
• 9:33
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So you draw the circle, and then you have each each part, and you have different percentages.
• 9:40
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Well, if your mind and my mind of that circle is let's say eighty percent uh where we feel pretty decent as we can, and then maybe twenty, you know, there's jitters, anxiety, extra, extra anxiety, stress, all that.
• 10:13
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Well, when we look at taking some of that 80 percent on the day before, and on the day or days of the month uh of the week, and we have stress, anxiety, etc.
• 10:41
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Well, that 80% could go to like 50, and so half the time could be feeling okay, you know, I'm feeling okay.
• 10:57
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Doesn't mean everything's great, no, just mean all right, I'm feeling okay, and then the other 50%, which was 20, which was 20, jumped 30 to be 50.
• 11:14
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Now 50 is that added stress anxiety, and so you you get what I'm saying, and I'm not talking about anything that uh is super complex, but it is something that affects us, whether we think it does or not.
• 11:42
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: I don't mean we have to get pen and paper, pencil and paper to do this.
• 11:50
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: I think I think it's just you know something that means communicating to to you and you know you commun communicating to others on your behalf or maybe somebody else's behalf affects us.
• 12:10
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: It it just does.
• 12:14
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And so when we try to go go on with our days, right?
• 12:19
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Or oh, don't worry about it, don't worry about it.
• 12:24
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Well, it's easy to say, but it's another thing, even if we want to believe it.
• 12:33
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Like, oh, today's just a regular day.
• 12:37
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Well, is it yeah, we talk about you know dental procedures, uh there's I mean there's some danger in in that, right?
• 12:59
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: I mean when you're dealing with you know getting part of our mouths numb.
• 13:09
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: I believe it's a needle that's used to to to that does that.
• 13:17
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Uh so there's always things that could go wrong.
• 13:22
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And then if we cross that over into the medical space, if we just had a test done for I don't for whatever.
• 13:43
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: What I I don't know.
• 13:45
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: There's so many different things it can be, right?
• 13:48
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: I mean maybe we were in a car accident.
• 13:53
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Maybe I don't know.
• 13:58
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: It could be anything.
• 14:03
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: It could just be we're getting older in age.
• 14:10
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Or we're not because you know, disease and diseases for the most part don't know in age, and don't know whether you're a Republican or Democrat, don't know any of that stuff.
• 14:30
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And one of those is cancer.
• 14:32
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Cancer does not only affect a certain political party or a certain person.
• 14:47
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: It doesn't, it just does what it does.
• 14:55
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So if we rewind and we're talking about, you know, are there days of the week that could really be stressful for us?
• 15:10
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: You're talking about getting a biopsy or some other some other test.
• 15:25
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Could be one test, could be three tests, could be ten.
• 15:29
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: I don't know.
• 15:34
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: But when we're talking about like those serious diseases, then that brings on a whole new like these are life the other things I was talking about, they can be life altering.
• 15:52
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: They can lower on a scale, mostly, not always, but when we're talking about okay, the doctor saw something, he or she wants you to come in next week for a test to rule something out or rule something in.
• 16:32
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And so I'm just I'm using cancer as an example.
• 16:35
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So to rule that it could be cancer or that it it's benign, that it's not, and then you get into what kind, and then there's like you know, additional tests usually.
• 16:51
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So heck yeah.
• 16:54
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: If that's me, I mean I I I've gone over with about my family and and with my dad, you know, going into the emergency room and having symptoms and basically leaving with the doctor saying, Oh, don't Google this before your next appointment So that's that's serious.
• 17:37
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So that takes again, that's right that instant right an instant, right an instant goes from, oh, I'm gonna go for a minor appointment, meaning a small appointment to uh oh I've got cancer, and then oh my gosh, it's already stage four.
• 18:24
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Oh my gosh, I have less than a year to live, and it goes on and on.
• 18:36
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So the mind is definitely gonna process that information a little bit differently than going and getting a cavity filled or a chipped one chipped one.
• 18:56
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: A crack, cracked one.
• 19:00
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Yes, there are again, there are things that could go wrong with having a cavity filled, a crown that I put on.
• 19:23
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: I'm not a dentist, so I don't know the terminology.
• 19:28
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Cancers are so like a widespread universal name.
• 19:35
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And then there's as we know, there's just hundreds and probably thousands of different cancers, and there's probably some that we don't we haven't even discovered yet.
• 19:51
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So when we talk about you know a cavity being filled, and then finding out we have cancer, well, the mind's gonna be nervous, anxious, and so that's gonna affect my mental health that way, and then finding out I have some amount of time to live, you know, usually you give a range, or they say we don't want to talk about that, we just wanna we just want to get to helping you.
• 20:36
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Well, that speaks for itself, speaks volumes, and so as we kicked off this episode talking about days of the week different, and I started off talking about you know work going into the office or logging in on Zoom or another, and Zoom is not a sponsor of Voices for Voices, but it is an audiovisual platform that is used along with others for companies to communicate and have meetings.
• 21:33
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So we can see that now, right?
• 21:52
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Talking about real life and how the very day That you're watching and listening to this, hopefully it hopefully it's a good day.
• 22:06
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Hopefully it's less of a stressful day.
• 22:12
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: But we do talk about as we have today.
• 22:19
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Talk about things and experiences and a lot of it's a hard a lot of it's hard to do.
• 22:31
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Or some people just don't want to do it.
• 22:34
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: I mean, I don't feel I don't get like all this joy by talking about these hard topics.
• 22:46
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: What gives me anything close to joy is that there is at least one person that's watching and listening that may learn something to help them and or somebody in their family, uh colleague at work, loved one, you name it, it may just bring may just bring to some perspective of okay, yeah.
• 23:26
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: It's as normal as normal can be to feel the stress and anxiety for different reasons, and so I just went through a whole host of different ways and reasons that uh could feel that way, one way or the other, and so I wasn't the one that I wasn't the one in my family that had that cancer diagnosis, that was my dad, but I went to every single appointment that I could, I I I think I went to all of them.
• 24:28
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: I was teaching during that time, so I there I I I may have come in like in the middle of an appointment or those those things, but as a family member, a son to my dad, I was dreading those days.
• 24:55
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: I was dreading those appointments, and so I can only imagine how that affected my dad, not just physically but mentally.
• 25:37
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So the best thing you can do that I've found is just to be present.
• 25:46
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: I mean, yeah, if you're able to financially pay for things, and you know, there's a lot of things you can do.
• 25:54
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: But just as a human being, just being in the same room.
• 26:02
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So just as my dad, when I was in 2017, 2018, when the therapy and and and the mental health valley was dealt to me partially by myself, where my dad would come and just literally sit in the same room for hours.
• 26:36
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: He would sit in the hospital for a it was a thing partial inpatient, so part of the day was in the hospital, the other part was at home, and I had that fear of driving, and so he drove me everywhere for a long time.
• 27:02
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: He didn't complain once, he didn't say, Oh no, can't do that.
• 27:08
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: He stopped with his the one, and he was there again, just sitting in that room, and then I take a full 180 when he had his cancer diagnosis.
• 27:35
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: There were many times where we would just be sitting in the same room.
• 27:44
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Instead of it being my house, it was my mama dad's house.
• 27:55
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And so, yeah, food and money and all those things, those are those are helpful, of course.
• 28:09
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: But when it all comes down to it, one day the person's gonna be here on earth, and another day they're not.
• 28:20
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: They're gonna be they're gonna be in heaven mushing down on us, being an angel for us, and so I find that so humbling because I for so many years I I thought doing something on a grand level, like I gotta do this and I gotta do that, thinking that well, if I donated this or if I did this, then that's better than if somebody else didn't do this.
• 29:11
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: No, I really learned what it meant to just be there and show love to my dad in part by the way he was showed love to me in my darkest days, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
• 29:55
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Because I was able to put the past away to an extent because I was able to talk about it, I was able to get therapy, I was I did it because I wanted to live.
• 30:18
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: I didn't think, well, I want to I mean having alcohol drinking again mostly the binge drinking on the weekends.
• 30:32
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: I I was like, I don't want to stop this.
• 30:38
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: But then I was like, well, I'd rather live.
• 30:47
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And so I'm still learning to live right now.
• 30:55
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And then for my dad, we all did as much as we could as humanly possible.
• 31:06
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Looked at therapeutics I remember one time one of the one of the visits, we went to a different a different hospital to get basically a second opinion.
• 31:32
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And then to see if the cancer had spread, and because we were hoping that it was in one spot, so that potentially surgery and chemo and radiation would have dealt with it, and so we we were holding on to hope.
• 32:06
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And so we went to this appointment and we were waiting in the lobby, and the test came back, and it the cancer hadn't spread.
• 32:25
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: My dad just said, you know, thank you, Jesus.
• 32:29
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Praise Jesus.
• 32:32
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And that's so true.
• 32:45
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: It didn't change the fact that at some point in the future that the cancer did spread.
• 32:56
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And I'm not talking years, I'm talking days, basically.
• 33:06
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: You know, you go in.
• 33:07
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Oh, I got stage four, I got less than a year to live.
• 33:10
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Let me get a second opinion.
• 33:12
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Okay, well, at least it hasn't spread.
• 33:15
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Praise Jesus.
• 33:18
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Or whoever you know, you don't have to be a believer like I do.
• 33:25
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Or like not like I do, like I am.
• 33:31
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: You can, but you don't have to.
• 33:39
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: But then how quickly things change day short just days later.
• 33:52
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And so our minds are going to react different to different situations.
• 34:07
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And those situations happen on days.
• 34:10
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Days of the week, days of the month, days of the year.
• 34:24
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So let's try to be grateful for what we have when we're given opportunities.
• 34:37
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Let's look at them.
• 34:40
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Let's never stop dreaming.
• 34:44
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: We don't know when our day, our final day is gonna be.
• 34:48
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Final hour, final minute, final second.
• 34:59
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So don't let anybody tell you you can't do it.
• 35:09
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Dream.
• 35:12
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Try to do what makes you feel good, doesn't make you feel dreadful, that you've got to go into work or do a certain thing.
• 35:27
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Mostly the going into work and having that affect you or I.
• 35:35
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Life's too short.
• 35:38
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: It's too short to spend any percentage, but especially a high percentage, higher percentage.
• 35:55
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: It leads to a higher percentage of stress and anxiety.
• 36:02
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So thank you for joining us on this episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast.
• 36:08
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Check out our uh expansive catalog over 480 episodes.
• 36:15
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Um again, we can't do this without you, and you're helping us do that, and you're helping us reach and help at least three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond this particular episode as all episodes that are explicitly said or not, been brought to you by Voices for Voices Audio.
• 36:50
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So until next time, let's celebrate the voices of everyone across the world.
• 36:59
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: And then at our level, let's be a voice for ourselves and somebody that may need their voice shared because maybe they're not able to.
• 37:16
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: So thank you very much.
• 37:18
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Have a great rest of your day, and we'll see you soon.
• 37:22
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Take care.
• 37:23
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Or send in love to everybody.
• 37:26
  Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices: Bye bye.